DVOA: A Near Perfect Way to Predict a Team's Final Record

Every year, experts, writers, and fans have made their predictions for the upcoming NFL season. For many, it seems almost like a guess, trying to understand the teams and players. Injuries, projections, and the stats that are not looked at make up a huge part of predictions though.

Rarely do you see a person make perfect predictions. There isn’t even a computer program that could simulate it perfectly. The best thing that is out their, in my opinion, is DVOA, or Defense Adjusted Value over Average.

DVOA? Explain please

Of course I will explain. Defense Adjusted Value over Average, or DVOA, is a formula written by the people at www.footballoutsiders.com. For short, what it does is evaluates a play, every play, and compares it to the league average.

The real tricky part, though, is it does NOT use 2008 (or the year prior) statistics, instead it uses PROJECTIONS for the upcoming season.

It takes things into account such as quarterback experience, injuries on the offensive line, and other things. There are many more things that go into it, and if you would like to read about it more, you can read about it at the website.

Ok, it sounds interesting, but what does it predict?

DVOA predicts the mean wins a team will get, their offensive rank, defensive rank, and special teams rank. It will also rank the teams with a percentage, based on the league average.

Each statistic gets a percentage, and that percentage is either negative or positive. That is how much better, or worse, the team will be at that statistic. Note, that like all predictions, it is not perfect. It is probably the closest I’ve seen though.

Can it predict individual games?

Good question, but the answer is no. It predicts it on an season basis, at the beginning of the season. As the season goes on though, and more stats are available, the predictions are updated. This gives a better understanding and better estimate for final records and rankings as the season goes on.

This sounds good and all, but just how accurate is it?

Of course, everyone wants results. We will look at the 2008 original predictions and the final win column for each team.

That’s good and all, but can you break that down further for me Kevin?

Within two games of their projected wins to their total amount of actual wins, there are 21 teams! If we further that and make it three games, that is 24 total teams. 24 teams within three wins of their projected wins, before the season starter. That is very well done. But too break down the teams that didn’t fall within three games, I will break them down.

Jacksonville: Four games awayThey were a very injured team, losing some defensive and offensive line players.

Pittsburgh: Four games awayThe hardest schedule, and they really played above expectations.

Tennessee: Six games awayShow me one person that had the Titans winning 11+ games last year, I’ll show you a crazy homer.

Kansas City: Four games awayThigpen injured, and lost very close games.

Miami: Five games awayI think everyone remembers the wild cat and how it turned over the league.

Green Bay: Four games awayDefense underperformed throughout the whole year.

Seattle: Five games awayHasslebeck injured throughout the year, offensive line injuries.

Atlanta: Six games awayWho predicted a Matt Ryan year like he had? Another surprise team.

As you can see, many were four games away. The teams that were far away, either shocked the league (Tennessee, Miami, Atlanta) or had injury to important players.

Kevin, you’ve shown me the light! I’m convinced. What does DVOA say about the league this year?